1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a ceramic electronic part and, more particularly, to a small-sized, surface-mounted ceramic electronic part equipped with external electrodes around its both of its end surfaces.
2. Description of the Related Art
Known surface-mounted ceramic electronic parts include laminated ceramic capacitors and ceramic piezoelectric parts. One such ceramic electronic part is shown in FIGS. 5 and 6, where the part is indicated by 25. This part comprises a boxlike ceramic device or body 21 having end surfaces 22 and side surfaces 23. External electrodes 24 are attached around both end surfaces and have rounded portions extending from the end surfaces 22 to the side surfaces 23. When ceramic electronic parts of this kind are made in smaller sizes, the ceramic device 21 is required to be made with quite small dimensions, e.g., the length (L) being less than 1.0 mm, and the height (H) and width (W) being less than 0.5 mm.
The above-described small-sized ceramic electronic part has the problem that attraction by the attracting nozzle of an automatic packaging machine used during a packaging step has low reliability. In particular, the automatic packaging machine detects the position or the like of each ceramic electronic part by a so-called reflection type image recognition method. As shown in FIG. 7, this machine utilizes a vacuum attraction type attracting nozzle A having a wide front end portion to attract the ceramic electronic part 25. Each external electrode 24 has rounded portions 24a extending from one end surface 22 of a ceramic device 21 to its adjacent side surfaces. These rounded portions 24a have a large thickness t (FIG. 6). The bottom surface A.sub.1 of the attracting nozzle A makes contact with the top surface 23a of the ceramic device 21. On this attracted surface 23a, a large step is created between the portions where the external electrode 24 is formed and not formed, respectively. Also, the ceramic device 21 has a small flat surface area. Therefore, it is impossible to secure a large attracted area. In consequence, the attraction by vacuum attraction has low reliability.
As shown in FIG. 8, an automatic packaging machine can detect the position or the like of each ceramic electronic part by a so-called transmission type image recognition method and can also use an attracting nozzle B having a narrow front end portion. In this case, a large gap G is created between the bottom surface 23b of the ceramic device 21 and a packaged substrate or a table against which the ceramic device 21 rests. When the attracting nozzle B is pressed against the ceramic electronic part 25 to attract it, the ceramic device 21 may be greatly distorted, resulting in a crack 27. In some cases, the ceramic device 21 may break.